by Web Editor | Mar 26, 2018 | News
From: Panel World Editors
Officials with Oregon State University are investigating a construction incident when a CLT panel failed in mid March at a campus building project. A 4×20 ft. panel, part of the sub flooring between the building’s second and third floors, gave way after delaminating on one end. No construction personnel were in the area and no one was injured. The panel was replaced, other sections of CLT sub flooring were shored up, and work was halted on other CLT sections.
Steve Clark, OSU vice president of marketing and university relations, said the university is bringing in an outside engineering firm to determine cause of the failure and whether any other CLT portions of construction were at risk of failure, and CLT work will resume once any issues are addressed. Ironically, the new Peavy Hall building is home to OSU’s renowned College of Forestry, and the building is designed to showcase Oregon’s forest industry and the relatively new (in North America) mass timber construction movement. However, Clark says project managers “have the utmost confidence in CLT” and plan to finish the project as designed using CLT. The project’s CLT panels are being supplied by D.R. Johnson Lumber of Riddle, Ore., which was the first U.S. producer to gain CLT certification in 2016.
by Web Editor | Aug 4, 2017 | News
If Yugon Kim realizes his dream, the new office building or housing complex going up in your city may be made out of large hardwood panels called cross laminated timber (CLT). The technology behind CLT has been used for decades in Europe, and it is just beginning to take root in the United States with softwood CLT leading the way. Kim’s Boston-based, architectural design firm IKD just won a $250,000 grant from the Forest Service for designing, developing and constructing the first hardwood CLT demonstration project in the United States.
The aim is to take low-value hardwoods and turn them into a high-value CLT construction project as a proof of concept. Kim explained, “Over 50% of every hardwood log in the region goes to low-value materials like pallets and cants. Our idea is to utilize this material and to upcycle it.”
Kim along with his design partner Tomomi Itakura have created an outdoor CLT construction project that is titled the Conversation Plinth and will be integrated as circular discs that provide a platform for viewing a sculpture at the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library.
Kim suggested, “The ultimate goal is to construct buildings in the United States using hardwood CLT. Our research hopes to lead toward hardwood mass timbers being used for U.S construction projects.”
The Conversation Plinth was designed for Exhibit Columbus, the annual celebration of architecture, art, design and community in Columbus, Indiana. IKD’s design was selected to win an inaugural J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize as part of a national competition.
From Pallet Enterprise: https://palletenterprise.com/view_article/4927/Hardwood-CLT
